Delphi

The Delphi Project is an attempt to develop data storage facilities
for
marine geological
paleoclimate research. It does so by maintaining a database of marine
core data incorporating research results. The aim is to centralise these
data and provide a Graphical User Interface for the user to query
this database.

Marine sediment core data, in particular oxygen and carbon isotope data,
from a variety of different locations is available from this site;
to access data from here, follow one of the links beneath this
paragraph

What kind of data is stored ?

At this moment most of the following contents are present, but this
list isn't complete:

Oxygen isotopes

Carbon isotopes

age models

SST models

species counts

News and data highlights 21 February 2008

Following the death of Professor Sir Nicholas Shackleton on 24 January 2006 the Godwin Laboratory has continued
to develop and pursue a variety of research topics. Professor Harry Elderfield and Professor Nick McCave
have overseen different aspects of this research effort. Dr Luke Skinner and Dr Patrizia Ferretti,
Dr Babette Hoogakker and Dr Aradhna Tripati are among the research workers associated with the laboratory.

Godwin Laboratory equipment and personnel have been incorporated into the main Department of Earth
Sciences building in Downing Street, Cambridge. This has resulted in the change in IP
address and the URL of this website.

Planktonic and benthic isotope data from MD95-2042, taken off the coast
of Portugal, are available here: MD952042
data and timescales. The marine isotope series have been aligned
with both GRIP and GISP chronologies, which in turn have been synchronised
with the Antarctic records using atmospheric methane trapped in bubbles.
This provides a fascinating insight into interhemispheric climate links
and their association with the surface and deep ocean records. See Science,
vol 291, p 291 for the ice core synchronisation by T. Blunier and E. Brook,
and p 58 in the same issue for a discussion by Nick Shackleton of the relevance
of this for the marine record.

Another extensive astronomically tuned time series, covering the interval
from 0 to 6 million years BP, is available from this site: the composite
isotope sequence from V19-30, ODP 677 and ODP 846, with an unprecedented
chronological resolution is available from the Core
Data section Composite
isotope sequence
. The oxygen isotope sequence represents a record
of the size of the Earth's ice sheet, and is therefore an important guide
to past global climate states. It is important to note that oxygen isotope records
combine the effects of changing ice sheet size, changing sea water temperature, and changing salinity.
Records may also be affected by diagenesis (changes taking place in the rock after sedimentation).